The Cotton Queen

by Pamela Morsi

  We were silent. The longer that it lasted the worse it became. Finally when I could no longer stand it, I started up a neutral conversation.

  “How long have you been driving?” I asked her.

  “Since I was a teenager.”

  “No, I meant how long today.”

  “Oh, well, all day, I suppose,” she answered. “I left a few minutes before eight.”

  That was a lot longer than it should have taken. “You must be exhausted,” I said.

  She nodded. “I am rather tired,” she said, dipping her roller in the paint tray once more.

  I reached over and stopped her movement.

  “Then stop doing this,” I said.

  “No, no, I mustn’t,” she said. “Painting this kitchen is apparently very important to you and you’re my daughter. What’s important to you is important to me.”

  “Really?” I said. “I always thought it was the other way around. What was important to you was supposed to be important to me.”

  “That, too,” she said.

  We lapsed back into a working silence. When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I tried to take the initiative again.

  “If you’re going to do this, maybe you should change into something you don’t mind getting paint on.”

  She glanced down at her clothes. “Do you like it?” she asked. “It’s new.”

  “It’s pretty loud,” I told her. “I know you haven’t been keeping up with fashion much, but people are wearing more muted colors these days, browns and grays and navy.”

  “Bright colors give you confidence,” she said. “You should really try it, darling.”

  I gave her a hard look and then commented nastily, “My confidence comes from inside me, Babs. I don’t need to try to find it hanging in my closet.”

  “Right,” she said after a moment.

  I realized that I was trying to start an argument and my mother was not cooperating. She was here to intrude on my life, ridicule my choices and discount my decisions. I knew that. And I was ready for her to just get on with it.

  “Look,” I blurted out. “I know what you’ve come here to say, and you might as well just say it and get it over with, because it’s going to be nothing but a waste of your time.”

  Babs glanced over at me. She was calm, thoughtful.

  “If you know what I’ve come here to say,” she said. “You might as well say it yourself.”

  “You’ve come here to express some kind of moral outrage about my living with Robert.”

  “Moral outrage,” she repeated. “Is that what you think? I’m very upset about this living arrangement, but moral outrage isn’t enough to get me to drive to Houston.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Love for my daughter, wanting what’s best for her,” she said.

  “Since when do you have any idea about what’s best for me,” I said.

  “Since the day you were born,” Babs answered. “You are young and very smart. You think you understand the world, but you don’t.”

  “I don’t understand the world?” I shook my head, incredulous. “Babs, you’re the one who has been holed up in McKinney for two decades. News flash, the world has changed while you weren’t paying attention.”

  “Things haven’t changed that much,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s all changed completely,” I told her. “Completely. All those narrow gender roles that women of your age were forced into, they don’t exist anymore. Maybe people have not started living together in McKinney, but in the rest of this country, Babs, there has been a revolution. Women have been empowered. We’ve got the pill. We’ve got equal rights. We’ve got opportunities. When you were my age your only choices were being a nurse, a teacher or a housewife. My choices are unlimited. I can be and do anything that I’m capable of.”

  Babs shook her head. “You are naive,” she said. “Men still own everything and run everything. They only let you think you have power. When it gets down to the gritty details of life, they still have the upper hand. And it’s the whip hand, Laney. Never forget that it’s the whip hand. Getting along with them or staying clear of them are the only choices a woman ever has.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It’s not crazy, it’s how life is.”

  “Who has hurt you so much to make you think this?” I asked her. “Was it my father? ’Cause I know it wasn’t Acee.”

  “You always defend him, don’t you,” she said, chuckling humorlessly. “He takes your side against me and you’d take his side against me. But that’s okay. I don’t mind. And I don’t want to talk about Acee. I want to talk about Robert.”

  “What about Robert?”

  “You talk about making choices, being empowered. But isn’t he still in charge here? Isn’t this his house? Doesn’t he set the rules? Doesn’t he make the decisions? Has he ever mentioned marrying you? No, of course not, it doesn’t suit him.”

  “It doesn’t suit me, either,” I insisted. “It’s his house because he’s already working. I’m still in school. Once I have my degree and start making my share of the house payment, it will be my house, too. As for the decisions, we make them together. He’s older and more experienced, so I listen to what he has to say. As time goes on, I’m sure that will evolve.”

  “Will it? Won’t he always be older than you? Won’t he always believe that he knows more?”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Do you know that?”

  “I do, because I love him and trust him, Babs,” I said. “I realize that it’s hard for you to understand that, having never loved or trusted anyone in your life.”

  “What a terrible thing to say!”

  “It’s true,” I pointed out. “You rely completely on yourself. You never let anyone in. Acee is such a great guy, crazy in love with you and would do anything for you.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s why he left me.”

  “Yes, he divorced you. Yes, he married Dorrie. But it wasn’t like you really cared. I watched for twelve years as you dismissed him, discounted him. In all those years, I never saw you initiate one encounter with him. He started the conversations, he took your hand. He asked about your day. If you two kissed, it was him kissing you. You never gave him so much as a scrap of your time or your affection. You treated him like a prison cell mate. Trapped in a narrow space, you didn’t want to share anything going on inside you. You don’t know anything about love and trust, so don’t even try to lecture me on it.”

  “I’ve always loved you,” she said. “You’ve never doubted that.”

  “Frankly, Babs, from time to time, I have. You’ve been as secretive with me as with everyone else in your life. Now here I am, finally happy and getting what I want from life. Are you here to celebrate that with me? No, you’ve come to try to make me feel bad about the good things I’ve found.”

  “No, Laney, no, that’s not why I’m here,” she insisted. “I’m here because I love you. I can’t bear to see you hurt or unhappy and this road that you’re on, that’s the only place that it can lead.”

  I shook my head. “Babs, I’m sure you think you know what you’re talking about, but you don’t,” I told her. “It’s not like it was when you were my age. America has changed. We don’t have that 1950s mind-set anymore. Women like me, who are bright, intelligent, motivated, we’re allowed now to go out and seek our own goals. We don’t have to marry someone to make a life.”

  “So you don’t believe in marriage? It’s because of my divorce, isn’t it?”

  “No, don’t be silly,” I told her. “I’m not angry at you or at Acee. You both love me and gave me a good home. I’m grateful for that.”

  “But you don’t want it for yourself.”

  “I do want it. I think. Eventually.”

  Babs nodded as if she understood, but her words were sarcastic. “So you don’t want to tie yourself down to the vows and commitments of marriage. You want to be free to just have sex with people.”


  “I am not ‘having sex with people.’ I am having sex with Robert. I love him and I’m committed to him. I’m just not legally committed to him.”

  “And he’s not legally committed to you,” Babs pointed out. “I don’t suppose you’ve found this out yet, but men have a difficult enough time staying faithful and true when they’re legally bound to. Without any sense of obligation to you, the best that we can expect of this man is to merely break your heart.”

  “Maybe I will end up hurt and miserable,” I admitted. “Then you can pat yourself on the back and say you were right all along.”

  “I don’t want to be right,” she said. “I want you to be happy.”

  “That’s what I want, too. I’m not like you, Babs. I have hopes and dreams and ambitions. There’s a big, wide universe out here and I want to see it, experience it, understand it. Do you think that I can come back to McKinney, marry some throwback to another era and put up wallpaper for the rest of my life?”

  I hadn’t meant my words to be such a stinging indictment of her own life, but the high color in her cheeks and the hurt expression on her face indicated that it had come out that way.

  Bravely she held up the roller and eyed me sternly.

  “I don’t mind if you paint,” she said.

  We continued through the rest of the day. Robert ordered a pizza for supper. Babs had never had food delivered. And seemed to relish the novelty. With Robert she was social matron in full battle gear, alternately charming him and putting him down. She manipulated him so easily, I was thoroughly annoyed.

  As the evening wore on interminably, she finally rose to go.

  “I’d better go find a hotel,” she said.

  “You’re very welcome to stay here,” Robert told her.

  I could have kicked him.

  “No,” she told him, smiling so brightly that he apparently couldn’t hear her words. “I couldn’t stay here. That would be like condoning, wouldn’t it?”

  Robert laughed as if they were having a little joke. He got in his car and had her follow him to the Shamrock Hilton Hotel at Main and Holcombe. By the time he returned, I was already in bed.

  “I had my doubts about your mom at first,” he told me. “But she’s delightful. You two are a lot alike.”

  “What? That’s nuts,” I told him. “Robert, she’s here to break us up. She doesn’t like you and she’s playing you.”

  “Don’t be silly, Laney,” he said. “I’m far too shrewd a businessman to be ‘played’ by some small-town housewife.”

  “Babs may never have ventured into corporate America,” I explained. “But she’s had lots of experience running civic groups and organizing fund-raisers, doing big social events. She even ran my stepfather’s campaign for judge.”

  Robert chuckled. “I’m sure she can give a lovely dinner party,” he said. “That’s what those women do, isn’t it? Wow each other over bouillabaisse. I’m not likely to be outmaneuvered by your middle-aged mother.”

  I was a bit surprised at Robert’s dismissal of Babs’s competence. I never doubted her abilities.

  My point was proven the next morning when she showed up before eight. I hadn’t even had my coffee.

  “I thought we might all go to church together,” she said.

  “We don’t go to church,” I told her.

  “Of course you don’t,” she said. “But I’m your guest and I want to go. You have to humor me.”

  “No,” I stated firmly. “You’re not my guest, you’re my mother. You showed up uninvited and you’re not making me go to church with you, just so that you can try to make me feel bad for ‘living in sin’ with the man I love.”

  “‘Living in sin,’” she repeated. “Remember that I did not say that, dear, that is your description. And you may love this man, but it seems to me that if he loved you, he’d want to declare it publicly and put a ring on your finger to prove it.”

  “Robert doesn’t need to prove anything to me,” I told her. “And he doesn’t have to prove anything to you.”

  “Oh, Robert dear, good morning,” she said a moment later as he came out of the bedroom. His hair was standing straight up and he was still unshaven. “I was hoping that you and Laney could take me to church this morning. I hate to go alone, but of course, I will, if you could give me directions or let me follow you in your car again.”

  “No, no, you don’t have to go alone,” he told her. “Laney and I will be happy to go with you.”

  I wanted to kick him. I wanted to insist that I wouldn’t go. But I knew that Robert wouldn’t, couldn’t, back down after he said he would take her. And the last thing I wanted was for my mother to be able to talk with him about me behind my back. We showered, dressed and went to church. Afterward, Robert bought us both brunch at the Warwick.

  “By the next time you come to visit,” he told Babs. “We’ll be able to cook for you at home.”

  I had high hopes that she would never come again.

  After lunch, we went back to the house. I thought it was time for Babs to head out. I didn’t want any excuse for her to linger.

  “It’s a long drive to McKinney,” I mentioned several times.

  She didn’t take the hint. Instead she made herself busy in my kitchen, where the paint was dry and the cabinets and shelves were ready to be reloaded. She laid down shelf paper and unpacked boxes. I didn’t like having her take the lead.

  “You don’t know where I want things,” I told her.

  She nodded. “So, I’ll unpack and hand them to you and you can decide where they should go.”

  That seemed reasonable, though I still thought the most reasonable thing was for her to get in her car and drive away.

  Neither Robert nor I had a great deal of dishes or utensils. Which was actually a big plus when it came to the two small cabinets in my freshly painted yellow kitchen. The work went quickly and within a half hour we had all of Robert’s meager possessions shelved and most of mine. I was straining to put a nest of mixing bowls on the top shelf when I heard a startled intake of breath behind me.

  I turned to see Babs, standing wide-eyed, pale and still as she stared at my SoupKids salt and pepper shakers. She looked as if she might dash them to the floor at any second. I couldn’t believe she would still be angry at me for rescuing them from the trash. I reached over and took them from her hands.

  “I see you found Alana and Marley,” I said. “You remember, Aunt Maxine and I saved soup-can labels and sent off for these. That’s what I named them.” I placed them on the windowsill and smiled at the sight of them there. “All the SoupKids are collectors items now,” I told her. “The ones in good condition go for fifty bucks, minimum. Of course, Marley’s hat is broken so that really cuts down on the resale value.”

  Babs made a strange, almost inhuman noise that seemed to come from deep within her chest. Then, inexplicably, and to my horror, she rushed to the sink and vomited.

  BABS

  WHEN I RETURNED to McKinney, I was determined not to allow myself to retreat again into the isolation that I’d been living. My visit to Houston had not been a success. There were so many things that I wanted to say to Laney, so many arguments I wanted to make against wasting her life on a man who had no commitment to her.

  Unfortunately my own demons had followed me to their place. After the incident with the salt and pepper shakers, I couldn’t get to my car and get out of there fast enough. Home was where I wanted to go. Home was where I was headed. In fact, I was in such a hurry that I went directly up the interstate driving right through the middle of Dallas, as if that city was no longer any more dangerous than the rest of the world.

  Amazingly, in terms of the conversations that I’d had with my daughter, Laney’s words had more effect on me than mine seemed to have on her. My daughter couldn’t see herself marrying someone from McKinney and putting up wallpaper for the rest of her life. Well, for myself, I couldn’t really view that as my future, either.

  I was forty years old. My daug
hter was grown. I had no prospect of grandchildren on the horizon. I had no real friends or social position. I was uninterested in remarriage. But, unless some tragedy occurred, I was likely to live for thirty years. I realized that I had to do something.

  I went to see Aunt Maxine. The day hadn’t yet heated up as we sat on her front porch sharing coffee. She was happier and more optimistic than I’d seen her in months.

  “Renny is moving home,” she told me.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He called me last weekend. He asked about you and I told him that you’d gone to Houston. He said he’d been thinking about starting over and that the best place might be home.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  She agreed. “I’m thinking about giving him the house.”

  “What?” I’m sure my jaw dropped open.

  “It’s not easy for a man to live with his mother,” she said. “That treads on a man’s self-respect, somehow. I’ve been thinking for some time that this place is too big for me. I’m going to sign over the deed to Renny and move into an old-folks place.”

  “A nursing home?” I was shocked. “Aunt Maxine, you’re much too healthy and vital to move into someplace like that.”

  “Not a nursing home,” she answered. “There’s a new kind of place they’ve come up with for old people, Senior Living they call it. They call us seniors instead of old coots. They have these places in Dallas. Every resident has her own apartment and some privacy, but there are group activities and help as well if you need it.”

  “You’re moving to Dallas?”

  “Oh, no, I could never leave this town,” she said. “I want to live in a place like that here in McKinney.”

  “There’s no place like that here.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “But you know what your uncle Warren and I always did. If we decided McKinney needed a drive-in or a Laundromat or a dry cleaners, we just built one.”

  “You don’t know anything about running a Senior Living Center.”

  “Warren didn’t know anything about shoemaking until he got his leg blown apart in the war,” she said. “He needed a more supportive shoe to allow him to stand, so he learned how to make one. Everything we’ve ever done, we’ve started from knowing nothing. I’m not too old to begin with that again.”